Miles earnings with stopover
 

Trying to price a rather long and weird routing and EK seems to be calculating too few miles earned:

CPT - (DXB) - HYD [stopover] - (DXB) - HKG [stopover] - BKK [stopover] - SYD [stopover] - AKL [stopover] - (DXB) - CPT

It is calculating CPT - HYD, HYD- DXB, DXB-AKL and AKL-CPT as sectors for mileage earning, meaning DXB - HKG - BKK - SYD - AKL earns the same as DXB - AKL direct, despite several stopovers on the way.

Is this right or just a glitch? See below.

Attachment 8632

PS: Prices at $1836 in Y, with the AKL-DXB direct service on the return. If you're wondering why I'm looking? I've got time and these types of itineraries often price out quite nicely on EK vs individual returns/OJs

By my calculation it should be:

CPT - HYD Saver: 1838
HYD - HKG Flex: 3640
HKG - BKK Flex: 700
BKK - SYD Flex: 3290
SYD - AKL Flex: 1500
AKL - CPT Flex: 7700

For a total of 18668 tier miles, so that's about 10-15% more than EK is calculating.

EK are arguing your flight is a DXB-NZ zone regardless of stopover, because they are basing it on the combinable fare components. You have likely have one itinerary comprised of combinable fares that are valid separately CPT-HYD, one HYD-DXB, one DXB-AKL and one AKL-CPT.

You might have luck emailing and ask them for a manual calculation though!

Yes I presumed as much however a combinable fare with 3 stopovers in different zones? HKG is truly not on the way to NZ after all. I could sort of understand the BKK and SYD argument as they're both stopover destinations enroute to NZ.

DXB-HKG-BKK is allowable on certain fares iirc - presumably that is being combined with the BKK-AKL portion

Ah I see. Just called and they priced the ticket all in Flex at R53,700 ($3550!!!) which is ridiculous. He had to combine it manually or something because there were more than 8 sectors. However when I explained the calculation issue he explained it was calculating DXB-AKL with stopovers and would've included the extra stopovers in the total fare rather than separate fares DXB-HKG/HKG-BKK/BKK-SYD/SYD-AKL, which I guess is pretty smart.

All in it's not a bad fare for the routing, just wish it would pay the 2k miles more like it should :D

Just quoted in my GDS, I get 17540ZAR fare / 1172usd

and the system breaks it to cpt-dxb-hkg-bkk-syd-akl with a sector fare dxb-hyd-dxb for the outbound, so you would receive cpt-akl miles + dxb-hyd miles (just took a random date in september, may differ with another availability...)

wow that's an amazing price! I'll see if I can trick the site into this or otherwise try coax a call centre agent into it.

Basically just going to work on the road for a month and tour some new places. September was pretty close, so I guess your fare must be pretty accurate for what I need, I have CPT-HYD mid-August, then the onward in 4-8 day intervals from 28th August - 16th September

mid august the fare is even cheaper, 15070zar + taxes :D
lower fare however still the same 'sectors', normally the homepage should quote it, looks like a lot but in the end a return fare + a sector fare but then it is the EK homepage...

you can PM me your exact dates and I can check what I get if you want

done, thanks.

Called call center again and very helpful lady got it down to R26,888 ($1790 or so) all-in and almost all in Flex. Waiting for her to call back to confirm the miles earning.